Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Expect the Unexpected ❯ Are You Gonna Be My Girl ( Chapter 8 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: LadyRiona 
Edward's thoughts after his meeting with Izumi...Winry's pissed at him, too...
Anime/Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 11.17.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 4.6K | Visits: 321 | Status: Completed
Edward's thoughts after his meeting with Izumi...Winry's pissed at him, too...
Anime/Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 11.17.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 4.6K | Visits: 321 | Status: Completed
Disclaimer: Don't own FMA. Then a note...the chapter title is just a play on the whole bit at the end of the chapter when Edward gets back inside. If you're confuzzled, listen to the song Are You Gonna Be My Girl, by Jet. Great song.Chapter 8: Are You Gonna Be My Girl
“I don’t trust the butler. At all.”
Edward’s own words echoed in his mind suddenly, reminding him of his conversation with Izumi. He mulled over that understatement with a frown. Ed seriously hoped the man had left. It would make things infinitely much more simple to deal with. However, if the man had refused to leave, Edward would have him put away a lot easier. So he was suffering mixed feelings on that subject. One of the few things Edward was sure of was that he wanted Primus gone.
“I purposely over heard a conversation between Primus and Quintus.”
“Who’s Quintus?”
“Old girlfriend. We probably started dating three months after Winry’s threat notes started.”
“So you think she’s in on it.”
“…Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
The fact that his old lover was very likely one of the people behind this fiasco was a little unsettling for Edward. That opened up the possibility for all sorts of conspiracies. He started to grind his teeth a little. How would he take care of that?
“Have you reported anything yet?”
“No. I’ve been caught up with stuff at Winry’s place; security, bugging the lines, stuff like that. Besides, I would have to have more evidence to put them away. All I have now is a gut hunch and a short phone conversation that means almost nothing.”
“Well, sending the butler out can eliminate much hope of finding out anything more.”
That was some hard truth. By telling the man to leave, Ed’s chances of finding anything out to keep the case going went with the butler. At this rate, he’d have to do a lot of snooping around to even find a decent piece of evidence to connect the man with the case. The recorded phone conversation was brief and didn’t have all that much information, other than Quintus and Primus knowing each other and her warning him about Edward’s perceptiveness. Maybe Edward should report the man and have someone keep a watch on Primus anyway? And someone on Quintus, too. Then he would be able to rest without much worry. The only thing he would have to keep one eye open about was Winry. She would very likely come into his room in the middle of the night and try to suffocate him or something. But he could take care of her; he had a very effective notion.
“You know what happened last time you got involved with someone you were working with.”
“I know…”
“And you remember what happened to that person, too, right?”
“I remember…”
“It took you a while to recover after that one.”
“I know!”
“…Be careful, Edward.”
The last time Edward had become involved with someone he was working with had been a recipe for disaster. It had only been a few months after he’d recovered from the car accident and learned to walk again with the prosthetics. He’d met a girl at the store and the very next day assigned to a beat near her house. His shift with Falman would end around eleven, and both would be tired so they would go to Rochelle’s house for some coffee. That was how Edward had gotten to know her. Then one night, he’d asked her out rather nervously. And from then on, they’d been like peas in a pod whenever Edward had time to spare. Some people had considered their relationship cute, similar to a way that high school students would have dated. Others referred to it as courting, since they rarely dated by themselves.
About three months after they had officially been dating, Edward had started to become a little suspicious of her. Using the resources he had at hand, he’d had someone track her one day when she’d turned him down for lunch. That evening, it had been confirmed she’d been with another guy for lunch. Edward had demanded that he go over to her house for a while, pleading missing her sorely. He’d given her pictures that his friend had snapped and declared them over if Rochelle couldn’t keep only one boyfriend. Of course, she’d been furious that he hadn’t trusted her. Edward had come back with a point on his lack of trust saving him from doing something stupid. While he had thought she might have picked him over the other bumbling boy she had been seeing, that comment had sent her through the roof and commanding him out of her house. Ed had gladly complied and left her with the pictures of her treachery. That had been enough for Edward, but a week later, he’d heard about a case of a girl in that area having been raped and killed. Upon further inquiry, Edward had discovered it had been none other than Rochelle and that other guy she’d chosen over Edward to be the one to be put behind bars for it.
Although he had been plenty mad at her for cheating on him, Edward had still been shaken by the news. If he had only held his tongue, been calm, and insisted they try to work things out, she might have lived. Edward had taken her death personal. He had acted indifferent on his exterior, but inside, he’d been rather stunned for many weeks.
Quintus had been the only other girlfriend after her. But their story was better left untold.
“I killed a spider in Winry’s attic earlier.”
“…Congratulations?”
“I guess. It had something in it. I don’t know exactly. I suggested Alphonse clean it up, rather than Primus. If the old man cleaned up, he would dispose of what is quite possibly some good evidence.”
“What do you think it is?”
“Maybe a camera of some sort. Something to keep an eye on Winry to make sure she wasn’t trying to figure stuff out on her own. She’s smart, you know. She could probably solve the case on her own if she were strong enough.”
“I see.”
Alphonse had called a few minutes before Edward and Izumi had left the café. He’d cleaned up the spider and found the device in the crunched “arachnid.” Though it couldn’t be of much use anymore because of Edward’s method of killing it, it had definitely been a camera before. But why there had been a freaking camera in a spider in Winry’s attic was slightly beyond either of them, still. Edward would have to think on that one for a while.
“Are you going to tell your boss? That…Roy Mustang person?”
“…I might. I should. I think I will. On the way home.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“…I don’t know. Something. I’ll think of it on the way to the station.”
Edward had stopped at the police station on his way home. Even though it was lunchtime by then, Mustang would still be working. That man had an obsession for his work, it seemed. He was always there. But anyway, Ed had burst into the station, looking like he was the shiznit, and waltzed right into Roy Mustang’s office. Then he’d proceeded to tell the man and his female shadow of his suspicions and the phone conversation. He’d promised to have a tape sent in by a messenger of some sort as soon as he could make a copy of it. Then he’d told about Alphonse’s discovery in the mashed spider. When Mustang had asked about that situation, Edward had stammered a bit, but recovered quickly. But recovering quickly was never quickly enough with his boss. Mustang could smell a rat if he wanted, and whenever it came to affairs of Edward’s or the inner workings of the police station, that man was all ears.
Ed could only guess that he would be getting some phone calls and comments from people at work. That would be fun to deal with.
“What other leads do you have?”
“None. Just what I told you earlier.”
Izumi was often Edward’s counselor for work when the woman was in town. She was fairly knowledgeable about many things, and ‘people watching’ wasn’t the least of them. So she could help him assess whomever he might be working with or for, or whomever he was following or tracking. She was handy. But when it came to evidence, she would have had to be there at the scene to know anything more than what Edward told her.
“I’ll be in town for a few more days, Edward. I’m staying at that hotel in Midtown Central, the one with the round rooms. Be sure to pay me a visit, with Alphonse, too. Maybe even your Winry Rockbell.”
“…Sure thing, Izumi. We’ll see about Winry. I might just find her a babysitter or something. But then who would want to spend the entire day with her?”
“She’s one of the stuck-up famous people?”
“No, not at all. She’s just opinionated. I can’t blame her, though.”
“Living with you, who wouldn’t be?”
Edward laughed to himself a little, letting up the pressure on his poor teeth. He was almost home. He imagined she would be boiling, looking for her notebook and from the way he’d left her. The last he knew of her, she’d been standing in the second floor hallway, dazed and astounded. He figured she had tried to unlock his door with hairpins and such. He’d made sure that the lock was unable to be picked. The only person who could get into his room was Edward.
But, Al was very skilled at lock picking. Winry’s wrath was enough that she could perhaps convince him to unlock the door. Or at least try to unlock it. If Al had any loyalty to Edward at all, but he was intimidated enough by Winry, the young man would fiddle with the lock for a while and then call it quits, just to appease Winry and to keep his life. So the possibility that Al accidentally picked the lock and Winry got in did not bode well. In fact, it worried Edward as he parked the car in front of her house. Hopefully she had fumed in the kitchen the entire time. With a frustrated sigh, He turned the door handle and leaned against the door to open it. However, the door did not go very far before the chain caught it. The sudden stop jolted Edward so badly; he would have fallen forward if there hadn’t been a very sturdy piece of wood in front of him.
With a renewed ire, he opened his mouth to yell for someone but found he didn’t have to. Winry was standing inches from the door.
“Oh, good. Winry, can you–” Then Ed stopped talking, mid-sentence. The look on her face was murderous. “Winry?”
“You’re a jerk,” she said easily before trying to shove the door shut.
But again, Edward had the weight advantage–and a limb or two that didn’t have any feeling. So he set his foot between the door and threshold and leaned his entire weight against the barrier. He heard Winry straining to shut the door, but he was no match.
“What did I do?” he asked incredulously.
“You don’t remember?” Winry managed, gaining an inch. “This morning?”
He remembered perfectly. “Winry, just let me in!” he ordered, glaring at her. “It’s cold! And it’s going to rain soon!”
“No! You kissed me twice and didn’t even tell me why!” she shouted at him, sounding slightly embarrassed.
“You were in my way! How else did you expect me to move you, non-violently?” He rolled his eyes at her.
“And you stole my notebook!” she accused, losing that inch.
Ed smirked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Winry,” he lied, finding himself with a sudden lack of patience.
“Liar! Why did you tell Primus to leave?” she wanted to know.
Finally fed up with her questions and attempted method to keep him out, Edward removed his foot. “I don’t have time for this,” he told her and moved away from the door.
He heard her loud, “Oof!” as she hit the door with more force than she could have anticipated. Then he saw her look out the window at him victoriously. With a wry grin, he held up his right hand and made the shape of an ‘L’ on his forehead. “Loser,” he said aloud. She glared at him and made her own sign back at him that was rather impolite. Then, while she wallowed in her glory of what she thought was her victory, Ed started toward the porch at the side of the house. He was only a few feet away when he heard Winry swear very loudly. Obviously, she’d figured out what he was planning. Faintly, he could hear her running through the house, making her way towards the porch but stopping at all the doors on the way to make sure they were all locked. Ed knew they were; he’d locked them himself.
When he reached the porch, he saw her stepping into the kitchen. If he wanted in without breaking the door, he’d have to hurry. So Edward broke into a dead sprint, hopped the railing when he came to it, and dodged the few chairs on the porch. He reached the door first, but it took him a moment to find the handle with his right hand; no feeling could be a bad thing sometimes. So by the time he’d found the handle, he heard the lock clicking. Then he heard Winry slide the deadbolt home and latch the chain. She opened up the curtains to look at him. Then she held up her right hand in the shape of an ‘L’ and put it to her forehead. “Loser,” he heard her say to him.
She would pay for making him eat his own words.
In the meantime, Edward glared at her. “I could break down this door!” he shouted.
She nodded cheerfully. “I’m sure you could! It’s mighty cold out there! Good think you have a jacket! I think I’ll go ask Primus to make a fire and write in my notebook! Oh, wait a second! Primus isn’t here, and my notebook has been stolen!” She shut the curtains abruptly and he heard her storm away in her house shoes.
Ed pondered the loyalty of his brother, and where the man was at the moment. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen; low battery. Maybe he could squeeze in one call…
He dialed the numbers for Al’s cell phone and hit the talk button, but by the time it was finished connecting, the battery decided it had had enough of being used and promptly shut off, without ceremony. Edward swore to himself and threw his cell phone at the cushioned porch swing as he heard distant thunder. Did he deserve all this? No. He was trying to keep Winry safe! And this was how he was repaid: being locked outside in less than forty-degree weather, a leather jacket, and a dead cell phone.
Oh, and the possibility of rain. Freezing rain. Life was just peachy.
He was in for a long afternoon.
---------------------
Edward suddenly sat up, his fingers of his left hand absently on his right shoulder. He looked in the kitchen and saw someone there. He squinted his eyes and found it was Al. He was saved! Al would open the door! Edward jumped up and rushed to the door. He started banging his fists on the door and yelling.
“Alphonse! Open the door! It’s freezing out here! Al! Alphonse!” No response.
“Al! Open this door right now! My arm and leg are going to freeze over! Alphonse!” Still no response.
Edward watched as his brother obviously ignored him to the point of pretending to read the newspaper two inches from his face while waiting for something in the microwave. Once that was done, Al picked up his plate and held it to the side of his face, clearly giving away what was happening. As the younger man left the room, Ed swore loudly. He hoped it was loudly enough that it would carry up to Winry’s room and ruin whatever concentration she had going on in her blond head.
She had intimidated his brother enough to ignore him! Just what had her threat been? Surely nothing worse than Edward would do to Al! If anything, Al should have intimidated her enough to let Ed in!
The things Ed would to do repay Winry.
------------------------
It was a great while later, at least three and a half hours, when Edward turned his head with a miserable moan. It was raining and sleeting. He had discovered that there was a hole in the porch roof just above the porch swing. It had been dripping rainwater and bits of ice onto the swing just beside Edward’s head in the groove where the seat began. However, Edward had been too cold to move once it had started raining. And now, he was wondering if he would at least be given something to sleep with in a few hours, something warm. A blanket would be nice, but he doubted he would be getting one.
Seriously, Winry was overreacting! Edward had probably caught pneumonia or something already! He’d been outside for about six hours! It was already twilight, and the temperature had dropped considerably. He wouldn’t be surprised if snow started falling at any given moment. Her method of revenge would probably leave him dead. And since Alphonse wasn’t a cop and had no real clue what to do should someone try to kill Winry, her revenge could quite possibly leave her dead too.
He had decided that reading her journal would be sufficient punishment for her. That and rubbing in her face all of the dirty things she’d written about Ed. Maybe she would be embarrassed enough to beg for forgiveness and be the most agreeable female ever to walk the planet. At least until things were over and done with.
Well, maybe that was indulging his fantasy a little too much. He would at least appreciate a heartfelt apology and some special treatment while he tried not to die.
“Are you just going to lay there and ignore me or do you want to come inside?” Ed suddenly heard a voice ask him.
He would have sat up immediately, but he was too cold and stiff to do so. “You’re in a lot of trouble, once I can move,” he promised Winry.
“You can’t move?” She sounded a little shocked, but covered it well.
To enunciate his pointed, Edward tried to shake his head. “Barely. And you know whose fault it is? Yours, princess. Now you better figure out a way to get me inside before I catch double pneumonia!” he growled at her.
“O-Okay.” Was she panicking? From the way her voice had quivered, it sure sounded like it.
In a few short seconds, Edward saw Winry kneeling beside him. She put her hand on his shoulder, but immediately drew it back like she’d been burned. Or frozen. Her startled expression was enough to tell Edward what had happened.
“Your arm…”
“Is frozen, thanks to you. Now just put your hand behind my back and help me sit up.” He knew his tone was harsh, but he was very upset with her! She would probably yell at him if he ever did the same thing to her. But he never planned to, since it was just cruel to leave anyone out in the cold for six hours.
However, Edward found himself being helped up by the very person who had locked him outside. And, in a few short minutes, he was limping into the library and sitting in front of the fireplace. He was about to point out the lack of fire when he heard an electronic beep and suddenly saw the fire blaze before him.
“Wow,” he muttered. “ Now, if I could actually feel anything, I might–”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Winry suddenly spat out. “You can stop rubbing it in now. Leaving you out there so long was stupid, and I shouldn’t have done it. Now you can shut up and we’ll all be happy.” She roughly jerked a chair over close to his and threw herself down into it. Edward looked at her and saw she was staring absently into the fire.
Maybe he had overdone it a little, too, with all of his griping and complaining. He was even thinking about apologizing to her. But then another thought struck him. “Where’s Al? I didn’t see him downstairs.”
She squirmed. She actually squirmed under his gaze. “He, ah…he went into town…” she mumbled.
“What!” Edward surprised himself and jumped up from the chair, knocking the blankets that Winry had put on him to the ground. “He did what? When?”
“About an hour and a half ago?” she said very quietly.
Edward fumed. He glared at her with a murderous look his foster mother would have been proud to claim she had instilled in him. Ed was not a happy camper. He was half frozen with the probability of some fatal sickness from being outside for so long without proper protection from the cold. And now, he was being told that the woman that had locked him outside had been left alone for an hour and a half without supervision! Edward was going to be sick with more than just a cold-induced illness. So he sat back down in his chair again and continued glaring at her.
“He said he had something to do!” she pleaded. “He had college classes or something like that.”
Edward continued glaring. “So he left you alone, in a huge three-story mansion, without any supervision?” he ground out.
“I’m not twelve, you know. I can take care of myself, believe it or not, Edward,” she returned crossly.
“Could you protect yourself from someone trying to kill you, Winry?” He was overdoing it again, but he didn’t care. He wanted her to know just how stupid it had been to do something like she had this evening.
She squirmed again. “You were still here.”
“Frozen to your porch swing,” he reminded her. “Just–” He took a deep breath. “Just…just drop the subject. We’re dropping the subject before I’m tempted to strangle you.” He already was, but he wasn’t going to let her know that. So instead, he clutched his metal hand with his left hand tightly.
Then a silence came. It was an uncomfortable silence; very much unlike the one Edward had shared with his foster mother. Edward took his turn to squirm subtly. He glanced over at Winry to see her looking rather upset. But she wasn’t crying, which was all that mattered. He could deal with upset women, just not crying women. Tears were a big no-no with him. Maybe he could turn the tide rather drastically and start to flatter her, and charm her into being happy again. It was worth a try.
“I’m thirsty,” he told her, pointedly leaving out the fact that he’d been left outside for six hours with only drops of rainwater to drink. “Let’s go downstairs to get a drink.”
Winry looked at him, a little surprised. “O-Okay,” she murmured.
Edward hopped over to her and held out his hand to her. That added to her astonishment, but she took his hand. When she tried to pull away from him, Ed merely held onto her hand tight enough to keep their fingers laced together. They were both silent as they went down the winding staircase. Edward knew he was silent because he was suffering from an insanely strong feeling of déjà vu. He had no clue why Winry was silent. At least she wasn’t sobbing. For that he was very grateful.
When they reached the kitchen, there came the awkward silence again. Winry tried to pull her hand away again and Ed let her. The heady feeling between his ears was overwhelming almost. They looked around, studiously avoiding each other’s gaze.
“Um…what did you want?” Winry asked finally.
Edward started. “What?”
“To drink,” she clarified.
“Oh. Well…I can make some coffee,” he told her and started towards where the coffee supplies were kept.
Winry put herself in front of him suddenly. “No, I’ll…make it.” Her voiced trailed off to a whisper when she realized what she had done.
Edward took a little step back to regain his balance. Then he looked down at Winry to see the same look of astonishment on her face as before, when he’d grabbed her hand. Then Edward surprised himself. He took her hand gently and brought her closer to him slowly. They were still both silent when he drew her face closer.
“It this always how it’s going to be?” Winry whispered. “You kissing me when we’re mad at each other?”
He paused a breath from her mouth. “If you want it to be,” he told her. He didn’t give her a chance to respond before he kissed her very, very softly.
“I don’t trust the butler. At all.”
Edward’s own words echoed in his mind suddenly, reminding him of his conversation with Izumi. He mulled over that understatement with a frown. Ed seriously hoped the man had left. It would make things infinitely much more simple to deal with. However, if the man had refused to leave, Edward would have him put away a lot easier. So he was suffering mixed feelings on that subject. One of the few things Edward was sure of was that he wanted Primus gone.
“I purposely over heard a conversation between Primus and Quintus.”
“Who’s Quintus?”
“Old girlfriend. We probably started dating three months after Winry’s threat notes started.”
“So you think she’s in on it.”
“…Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
The fact that his old lover was very likely one of the people behind this fiasco was a little unsettling for Edward. That opened up the possibility for all sorts of conspiracies. He started to grind his teeth a little. How would he take care of that?
“Have you reported anything yet?”
“No. I’ve been caught up with stuff at Winry’s place; security, bugging the lines, stuff like that. Besides, I would have to have more evidence to put them away. All I have now is a gut hunch and a short phone conversation that means almost nothing.”
“Well, sending the butler out can eliminate much hope of finding out anything more.”
That was some hard truth. By telling the man to leave, Ed’s chances of finding anything out to keep the case going went with the butler. At this rate, he’d have to do a lot of snooping around to even find a decent piece of evidence to connect the man with the case. The recorded phone conversation was brief and didn’t have all that much information, other than Quintus and Primus knowing each other and her warning him about Edward’s perceptiveness. Maybe Edward should report the man and have someone keep a watch on Primus anyway? And someone on Quintus, too. Then he would be able to rest without much worry. The only thing he would have to keep one eye open about was Winry. She would very likely come into his room in the middle of the night and try to suffocate him or something. But he could take care of her; he had a very effective notion.
“You know what happened last time you got involved with someone you were working with.”
“I know…”
“And you remember what happened to that person, too, right?”
“I remember…”
“It took you a while to recover after that one.”
“I know!”
“…Be careful, Edward.”
The last time Edward had become involved with someone he was working with had been a recipe for disaster. It had only been a few months after he’d recovered from the car accident and learned to walk again with the prosthetics. He’d met a girl at the store and the very next day assigned to a beat near her house. His shift with Falman would end around eleven, and both would be tired so they would go to Rochelle’s house for some coffee. That was how Edward had gotten to know her. Then one night, he’d asked her out rather nervously. And from then on, they’d been like peas in a pod whenever Edward had time to spare. Some people had considered their relationship cute, similar to a way that high school students would have dated. Others referred to it as courting, since they rarely dated by themselves.
About three months after they had officially been dating, Edward had started to become a little suspicious of her. Using the resources he had at hand, he’d had someone track her one day when she’d turned him down for lunch. That evening, it had been confirmed she’d been with another guy for lunch. Edward had demanded that he go over to her house for a while, pleading missing her sorely. He’d given her pictures that his friend had snapped and declared them over if Rochelle couldn’t keep only one boyfriend. Of course, she’d been furious that he hadn’t trusted her. Edward had come back with a point on his lack of trust saving him from doing something stupid. While he had thought she might have picked him over the other bumbling boy she had been seeing, that comment had sent her through the roof and commanding him out of her house. Ed had gladly complied and left her with the pictures of her treachery. That had been enough for Edward, but a week later, he’d heard about a case of a girl in that area having been raped and killed. Upon further inquiry, Edward had discovered it had been none other than Rochelle and that other guy she’d chosen over Edward to be the one to be put behind bars for it.
Although he had been plenty mad at her for cheating on him, Edward had still been shaken by the news. If he had only held his tongue, been calm, and insisted they try to work things out, she might have lived. Edward had taken her death personal. He had acted indifferent on his exterior, but inside, he’d been rather stunned for many weeks.
Quintus had been the only other girlfriend after her. But their story was better left untold.
“I killed a spider in Winry’s attic earlier.”
“…Congratulations?”
“I guess. It had something in it. I don’t know exactly. I suggested Alphonse clean it up, rather than Primus. If the old man cleaned up, he would dispose of what is quite possibly some good evidence.”
“What do you think it is?”
“Maybe a camera of some sort. Something to keep an eye on Winry to make sure she wasn’t trying to figure stuff out on her own. She’s smart, you know. She could probably solve the case on her own if she were strong enough.”
“I see.”
Alphonse had called a few minutes before Edward and Izumi had left the café. He’d cleaned up the spider and found the device in the crunched “arachnid.” Though it couldn’t be of much use anymore because of Edward’s method of killing it, it had definitely been a camera before. But why there had been a freaking camera in a spider in Winry’s attic was slightly beyond either of them, still. Edward would have to think on that one for a while.
“Are you going to tell your boss? That…Roy Mustang person?”
“…I might. I should. I think I will. On the way home.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“…I don’t know. Something. I’ll think of it on the way to the station.”
Edward had stopped at the police station on his way home. Even though it was lunchtime by then, Mustang would still be working. That man had an obsession for his work, it seemed. He was always there. But anyway, Ed had burst into the station, looking like he was the shiznit, and waltzed right into Roy Mustang’s office. Then he’d proceeded to tell the man and his female shadow of his suspicions and the phone conversation. He’d promised to have a tape sent in by a messenger of some sort as soon as he could make a copy of it. Then he’d told about Alphonse’s discovery in the mashed spider. When Mustang had asked about that situation, Edward had stammered a bit, but recovered quickly. But recovering quickly was never quickly enough with his boss. Mustang could smell a rat if he wanted, and whenever it came to affairs of Edward’s or the inner workings of the police station, that man was all ears.
Ed could only guess that he would be getting some phone calls and comments from people at work. That would be fun to deal with.
“What other leads do you have?”
“None. Just what I told you earlier.”
Izumi was often Edward’s counselor for work when the woman was in town. She was fairly knowledgeable about many things, and ‘people watching’ wasn’t the least of them. So she could help him assess whomever he might be working with or for, or whomever he was following or tracking. She was handy. But when it came to evidence, she would have had to be there at the scene to know anything more than what Edward told her.
“I’ll be in town for a few more days, Edward. I’m staying at that hotel in Midtown Central, the one with the round rooms. Be sure to pay me a visit, with Alphonse, too. Maybe even your Winry Rockbell.”
“…Sure thing, Izumi. We’ll see about Winry. I might just find her a babysitter or something. But then who would want to spend the entire day with her?”
“She’s one of the stuck-up famous people?”
“No, not at all. She’s just opinionated. I can’t blame her, though.”
“Living with you, who wouldn’t be?”
Edward laughed to himself a little, letting up the pressure on his poor teeth. He was almost home. He imagined she would be boiling, looking for her notebook and from the way he’d left her. The last he knew of her, she’d been standing in the second floor hallway, dazed and astounded. He figured she had tried to unlock his door with hairpins and such. He’d made sure that the lock was unable to be picked. The only person who could get into his room was Edward.
But, Al was very skilled at lock picking. Winry’s wrath was enough that she could perhaps convince him to unlock the door. Or at least try to unlock it. If Al had any loyalty to Edward at all, but he was intimidated enough by Winry, the young man would fiddle with the lock for a while and then call it quits, just to appease Winry and to keep his life. So the possibility that Al accidentally picked the lock and Winry got in did not bode well. In fact, it worried Edward as he parked the car in front of her house. Hopefully she had fumed in the kitchen the entire time. With a frustrated sigh, He turned the door handle and leaned against the door to open it. However, the door did not go very far before the chain caught it. The sudden stop jolted Edward so badly; he would have fallen forward if there hadn’t been a very sturdy piece of wood in front of him.
With a renewed ire, he opened his mouth to yell for someone but found he didn’t have to. Winry was standing inches from the door.
“Oh, good. Winry, can you–” Then Ed stopped talking, mid-sentence. The look on her face was murderous. “Winry?”
“You’re a jerk,” she said easily before trying to shove the door shut.
But again, Edward had the weight advantage–and a limb or two that didn’t have any feeling. So he set his foot between the door and threshold and leaned his entire weight against the barrier. He heard Winry straining to shut the door, but he was no match.
“What did I do?” he asked incredulously.
“You don’t remember?” Winry managed, gaining an inch. “This morning?”
He remembered perfectly. “Winry, just let me in!” he ordered, glaring at her. “It’s cold! And it’s going to rain soon!”
“No! You kissed me twice and didn’t even tell me why!” she shouted at him, sounding slightly embarrassed.
“You were in my way! How else did you expect me to move you, non-violently?” He rolled his eyes at her.
“And you stole my notebook!” she accused, losing that inch.
Ed smirked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Winry,” he lied, finding himself with a sudden lack of patience.
“Liar! Why did you tell Primus to leave?” she wanted to know.
Finally fed up with her questions and attempted method to keep him out, Edward removed his foot. “I don’t have time for this,” he told her and moved away from the door.
He heard her loud, “Oof!” as she hit the door with more force than she could have anticipated. Then he saw her look out the window at him victoriously. With a wry grin, he held up his right hand and made the shape of an ‘L’ on his forehead. “Loser,” he said aloud. She glared at him and made her own sign back at him that was rather impolite. Then, while she wallowed in her glory of what she thought was her victory, Ed started toward the porch at the side of the house. He was only a few feet away when he heard Winry swear very loudly. Obviously, she’d figured out what he was planning. Faintly, he could hear her running through the house, making her way towards the porch but stopping at all the doors on the way to make sure they were all locked. Ed knew they were; he’d locked them himself.
When he reached the porch, he saw her stepping into the kitchen. If he wanted in without breaking the door, he’d have to hurry. So Edward broke into a dead sprint, hopped the railing when he came to it, and dodged the few chairs on the porch. He reached the door first, but it took him a moment to find the handle with his right hand; no feeling could be a bad thing sometimes. So by the time he’d found the handle, he heard the lock clicking. Then he heard Winry slide the deadbolt home and latch the chain. She opened up the curtains to look at him. Then she held up her right hand in the shape of an ‘L’ and put it to her forehead. “Loser,” he heard her say to him.
She would pay for making him eat his own words.
In the meantime, Edward glared at her. “I could break down this door!” he shouted.
She nodded cheerfully. “I’m sure you could! It’s mighty cold out there! Good think you have a jacket! I think I’ll go ask Primus to make a fire and write in my notebook! Oh, wait a second! Primus isn’t here, and my notebook has been stolen!” She shut the curtains abruptly and he heard her storm away in her house shoes.
Ed pondered the loyalty of his brother, and where the man was at the moment. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen; low battery. Maybe he could squeeze in one call…
He dialed the numbers for Al’s cell phone and hit the talk button, but by the time it was finished connecting, the battery decided it had had enough of being used and promptly shut off, without ceremony. Edward swore to himself and threw his cell phone at the cushioned porch swing as he heard distant thunder. Did he deserve all this? No. He was trying to keep Winry safe! And this was how he was repaid: being locked outside in less than forty-degree weather, a leather jacket, and a dead cell phone.
Oh, and the possibility of rain. Freezing rain. Life was just peachy.
He was in for a long afternoon.
---------------------
Edward suddenly sat up, his fingers of his left hand absently on his right shoulder. He looked in the kitchen and saw someone there. He squinted his eyes and found it was Al. He was saved! Al would open the door! Edward jumped up and rushed to the door. He started banging his fists on the door and yelling.
“Alphonse! Open the door! It’s freezing out here! Al! Alphonse!” No response.
“Al! Open this door right now! My arm and leg are going to freeze over! Alphonse!” Still no response.
Edward watched as his brother obviously ignored him to the point of pretending to read the newspaper two inches from his face while waiting for something in the microwave. Once that was done, Al picked up his plate and held it to the side of his face, clearly giving away what was happening. As the younger man left the room, Ed swore loudly. He hoped it was loudly enough that it would carry up to Winry’s room and ruin whatever concentration she had going on in her blond head.
She had intimidated his brother enough to ignore him! Just what had her threat been? Surely nothing worse than Edward would do to Al! If anything, Al should have intimidated her enough to let Ed in!
The things Ed would to do repay Winry.
------------------------
It was a great while later, at least three and a half hours, when Edward turned his head with a miserable moan. It was raining and sleeting. He had discovered that there was a hole in the porch roof just above the porch swing. It had been dripping rainwater and bits of ice onto the swing just beside Edward’s head in the groove where the seat began. However, Edward had been too cold to move once it had started raining. And now, he was wondering if he would at least be given something to sleep with in a few hours, something warm. A blanket would be nice, but he doubted he would be getting one.
Seriously, Winry was overreacting! Edward had probably caught pneumonia or something already! He’d been outside for about six hours! It was already twilight, and the temperature had dropped considerably. He wouldn’t be surprised if snow started falling at any given moment. Her method of revenge would probably leave him dead. And since Alphonse wasn’t a cop and had no real clue what to do should someone try to kill Winry, her revenge could quite possibly leave her dead too.
He had decided that reading her journal would be sufficient punishment for her. That and rubbing in her face all of the dirty things she’d written about Ed. Maybe she would be embarrassed enough to beg for forgiveness and be the most agreeable female ever to walk the planet. At least until things were over and done with.
Well, maybe that was indulging his fantasy a little too much. He would at least appreciate a heartfelt apology and some special treatment while he tried not to die.
“Are you just going to lay there and ignore me or do you want to come inside?” Ed suddenly heard a voice ask him.
He would have sat up immediately, but he was too cold and stiff to do so. “You’re in a lot of trouble, once I can move,” he promised Winry.
“You can’t move?” She sounded a little shocked, but covered it well.
To enunciate his pointed, Edward tried to shake his head. “Barely. And you know whose fault it is? Yours, princess. Now you better figure out a way to get me inside before I catch double pneumonia!” he growled at her.
“O-Okay.” Was she panicking? From the way her voice had quivered, it sure sounded like it.
In a few short seconds, Edward saw Winry kneeling beside him. She put her hand on his shoulder, but immediately drew it back like she’d been burned. Or frozen. Her startled expression was enough to tell Edward what had happened.
“Your arm…”
“Is frozen, thanks to you. Now just put your hand behind my back and help me sit up.” He knew his tone was harsh, but he was very upset with her! She would probably yell at him if he ever did the same thing to her. But he never planned to, since it was just cruel to leave anyone out in the cold for six hours.
However, Edward found himself being helped up by the very person who had locked him outside. And, in a few short minutes, he was limping into the library and sitting in front of the fireplace. He was about to point out the lack of fire when he heard an electronic beep and suddenly saw the fire blaze before him.
“Wow,” he muttered. “ Now, if I could actually feel anything, I might–”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Winry suddenly spat out. “You can stop rubbing it in now. Leaving you out there so long was stupid, and I shouldn’t have done it. Now you can shut up and we’ll all be happy.” She roughly jerked a chair over close to his and threw herself down into it. Edward looked at her and saw she was staring absently into the fire.
Maybe he had overdone it a little, too, with all of his griping and complaining. He was even thinking about apologizing to her. But then another thought struck him. “Where’s Al? I didn’t see him downstairs.”
She squirmed. She actually squirmed under his gaze. “He, ah…he went into town…” she mumbled.
“What!” Edward surprised himself and jumped up from the chair, knocking the blankets that Winry had put on him to the ground. “He did what? When?”
“About an hour and a half ago?” she said very quietly.
Edward fumed. He glared at her with a murderous look his foster mother would have been proud to claim she had instilled in him. Ed was not a happy camper. He was half frozen with the probability of some fatal sickness from being outside for so long without proper protection from the cold. And now, he was being told that the woman that had locked him outside had been left alone for an hour and a half without supervision! Edward was going to be sick with more than just a cold-induced illness. So he sat back down in his chair again and continued glaring at her.
“He said he had something to do!” she pleaded. “He had college classes or something like that.”
Edward continued glaring. “So he left you alone, in a huge three-story mansion, without any supervision?” he ground out.
“I’m not twelve, you know. I can take care of myself, believe it or not, Edward,” she returned crossly.
“Could you protect yourself from someone trying to kill you, Winry?” He was overdoing it again, but he didn’t care. He wanted her to know just how stupid it had been to do something like she had this evening.
She squirmed again. “You were still here.”
“Frozen to your porch swing,” he reminded her. “Just–” He took a deep breath. “Just…just drop the subject. We’re dropping the subject before I’m tempted to strangle you.” He already was, but he wasn’t going to let her know that. So instead, he clutched his metal hand with his left hand tightly.
Then a silence came. It was an uncomfortable silence; very much unlike the one Edward had shared with his foster mother. Edward took his turn to squirm subtly. He glanced over at Winry to see her looking rather upset. But she wasn’t crying, which was all that mattered. He could deal with upset women, just not crying women. Tears were a big no-no with him. Maybe he could turn the tide rather drastically and start to flatter her, and charm her into being happy again. It was worth a try.
“I’m thirsty,” he told her, pointedly leaving out the fact that he’d been left outside for six hours with only drops of rainwater to drink. “Let’s go downstairs to get a drink.”
Winry looked at him, a little surprised. “O-Okay,” she murmured.
Edward hopped over to her and held out his hand to her. That added to her astonishment, but she took his hand. When she tried to pull away from him, Ed merely held onto her hand tight enough to keep their fingers laced together. They were both silent as they went down the winding staircase. Edward knew he was silent because he was suffering from an insanely strong feeling of déjà vu. He had no clue why Winry was silent. At least she wasn’t sobbing. For that he was very grateful.
When they reached the kitchen, there came the awkward silence again. Winry tried to pull her hand away again and Ed let her. The heady feeling between his ears was overwhelming almost. They looked around, studiously avoiding each other’s gaze.
“Um…what did you want?” Winry asked finally.
Edward started. “What?”
“To drink,” she clarified.
“Oh. Well…I can make some coffee,” he told her and started towards where the coffee supplies were kept.
Winry put herself in front of him suddenly. “No, I’ll…make it.” Her voiced trailed off to a whisper when she realized what she had done.
Edward took a little step back to regain his balance. Then he looked down at Winry to see the same look of astonishment on her face as before, when he’d grabbed her hand. Then Edward surprised himself. He took her hand gently and brought her closer to him slowly. They were still both silent when he drew her face closer.
“It this always how it’s going to be?” Winry whispered. “You kissing me when we’re mad at each other?”
He paused a breath from her mouth. “If you want it to be,” he told her. He didn’t give her a chance to respond before he kissed her very, very softly.